Possibilities linger for the banning of human cloning in the state of Wisconsin through a potential bill that has to make it through the State Assembly as well as the State Senate.

Rep. Steve Kestell, R-Elkhart Lake, will introduce the bill to the assembly in the middle of February, while Sen. Joseph Leibham, R-Sheboygan, will propose an identical bill in the Senate. If passed, the bill will call for an end to human cloning for any purpose in Wisconsin.

Warclaw Szybalski, a professor of oncology at the University of Wisconsin, described cloning as a scientist taking an egg cell, removing the nucleus and replacing it with a nucleus from a different cell to produce an embryo.

This process can be used for two basic purposes: reproduction, which is cloning with the intention to develop a live child, and therapeutic cloning, when the goal is to grow the embryo to a certain size and kill it for research purposes.

Reproductive cloning has received staunch opposition because of the slew of ethical and moral issues surrounding the idea.

“At the moment, no one but crazy people wants to try it,” said Alta Charo, a professor of law and medical ethics at UW.

Szybalski agreed, saying technology is so primitive that the risk of a defective child is too great.

There is no group that can prove they have cloned a human, but one received national press last month when they claimed they cloned a child. The claims of Clonaid, a company backed by the Raelians, a religious cult that believes humans were cloned from an alien species, have received no acceptance in the scientific community due to the group’s inability to provide any proof to its claims.

Charo stressed that the scientific community did not want to use this technology for reproduction but rather as a tool to understand human genetics.

However, the bill will also outlaw cloning for scientific intent.

“I think [the ban] would be a terrible idea; [cloning] is the most important tool for the study of genetic disease,” Charo said.

Szybalsdi agreed, saying that the ban would “block research that can save lives. It’d be criminal.”

Cloning an individual with a genetic disease could create an embryo with the same harmful mutation, Charo said. Scientists could then study the material to gain a better understanding of the mechanism of the disorder and would then be able to test new medicines.

Charo said while no one at UW is currently conducting research involving human cloning, such research is being conducted in other places.

A ban in Wisconsin could convince researchers to go elsewhere in the future if cloning is necessary to their project, although Kestell said “nearly all states have a ban in place or are working on one.”

The ban would not interfere with stem-cell research or animal cloning, Kestell said.

“If people understand [the bill], many will oppose it, because they understand that research is important,” Charo said.

Kestell believes cloning is just as wrong as robbery or murder and that it is the position of the majority of Wisconsinites to ban it.

“I think most people would agree that potential dangers exist in the proliferation of human engineering and the loss of genetic diversity and individuality,” Kestell said.

Kestell said he has received strong support from both legislative houses and groups like Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Right to Life. He also said he has perceived universal agreement for the ban except from those who “march to a different drum,” like those in the scientific community.

In President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address last Tuesday, he asked the U.S. Congress to ban all human cloning “because no life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment.”

“The president made it pretty clear that he wants to ban human cloning,” Kestell said. “We’ve got some pretty big support in Washington.”

The ban in Wisconsin would be very similar to the federal proposal to ban cloning.

“We cannot wait for a federal ban,” said Katherine Ribneck, communications director at Pro-Life Wisconsin. “We need to do something now.”

“Cloning is the forming of a new human life in a petri dish; it totally disregards the dignity of the human,” Ribneck said. “Human embryos are people, not research material.”

Kestell said up to now animal-cloning experiments have a 97 percent failure rate and have produced malformed animals, making the complications of human cloning too great to risk.

However, Szybalski strongly believes only certain political figures and devoutly religious people feel cloning is dangerous.

“There’s no known danger, it helps the sick, suffering, hurt and old. Why would you stop that?” Szybalski said.